[7][8] He was hired by Blue State Digital as their first employee,[9] shortly after the company was founded, following the end of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

There, he was a senior developer, helping design and build the technology to power the Democratic National Committee's digital engagement efforts for the 2006 mid-term elections.

[15] The study ended up as part of Cal Newport's book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016).

[18] While at the department, he was responsible for launching ShareAmerica, a government Upworthy clone[19] that is a "digital-first platform with socially-optimized content that was policy relevant," available in seven languages to cover an audience of 4 billion people.

[20] After leaving the Obama administration in 2016, Cochran was tapped to lead the public sector practice as chief digital strategist for Acquia, a Boston-based software-as-a-service company.