After college, Covel began work on the film Think Tank. In 2003 he joined the team writing and producing Napoleon Dynamite, which won critical acclaim. For his and Chris Wyatt’s work on the film, they were nominated for the producer award at the 20th Independent Spirit Awards.

In 2015, he founded a children’s charity, 12 Days of Pizza, which works annually with Pizza Ranch to help low-income elementary school children eat over school holiday periods. It started with 144 meals being provided to 12 families. Within a three-year period, the program grew to provide over 12,000 meals to over 1000 food-insecure families with elementary school aged children. The program continues to expand each year. The program is also available for people affected due to coronavirus.

In 2019, Covel gave a TED talk entitled “The mind is a computer. The question is how,” on the mental framework of problem-solving.

In 2019, Covel partnered with illustrator Rebecca Swift to launch a 64-book series for kids, in which the title character is called Porter the Hoarder. The first book, Porter the Hoarder and the Ransacked Room, was a bestseller in 2019.