I’m left to wonder, because the last time he was pushing this much code into Cycles (especially in the area of shading and sampling), he was still working for the BF (before his contract with Solid Angle).
So I’m left to wonder if his work at Solid Angle has concluded (or Autodesk is so confident that Cycles won’t pose a threat that it can afford to let the current work go on)? Is he officially back to help take Cycles to the next level for 2.8?
Seems like he left Autodesk at the end of June based off his linkedin?
If so, welcome back Brecht, and I hope the BF finds enough money to offer another paid contract (even if it requires you to work on general 2.8 stuff as well as Cycles) 
I’m really surprised that the companies he has worked for don’t have some kind of non-compete clause in their contracts.
Because he has to sign it in the first place and can reject it. Its not like 3d engine programmers are over-represent on the market.
When he was working for Solid Angle he couldn’t work for Cycles, only do code reviewing … I guess if he don’t work for them he can do whatever he wants now, but things he worked at SA may stay under non-disclosure.
I guess if he don’t work for them he can do whatever he wants now
There are non-compete clauses that extend beyond the duration of the employment and the point is usually that people aren’t so easily poached by competitors.
I would consider such clauses pretty offensive (unless maybe there’s a year’s worth of salary in it). You don’t want to offend your “unicorn”-level talent like Brecht.
Everyone I’ve talked to at Solid Angle (even post-acquisition) has said that they’re very supportive of work on other projects, as long as you’re not giving out any of the “special sauce” from their source code. It behooves them for their coders to be sharp, happy, and on their game. The pool of people who can do that kind of work at the core engineer level is limited to maybe a few dozen people in the world.