> Giving candidates a company account for the challenge is off the table: it’s a liability, and I can’t guarantee how it will be used. Reimbursing what they spend doesn’t work either. It’s hard to justify as a business expense, and it quickly drifts into a financial gray area.

If you can't give qualified candidates who request it an OpenRouter key with $50 on it how are you affording to pay salaries? How little do you value the interviewing and CV review time of your current engineers? What's the liability you're worried about incurring?