[allangrant]

This is just the starting point, because these organizations already have rigorous hiring practices. I know - this sucks. But it's just a starting point.

We're trying to come up with ideas for how to open it up to a wider audience while still keeping up quality. Any ideas?

[ryanmolden]

Non-trivial coding challenges with entries evaluated by existing members. Coming up evaluation/scoring criteria may be tricky, as would enticing the engineers to take the time / effort to do a thorough evaluation of submissions, and a diverse enough set of challenges to appeal to a broad cross-section of candidates.