Given that online programming competitions tend to fall into distinct classes (dynamic programming, algorithmic challenges, graph problems, string problems), this seems maybe more "solvable" with a non-AI implementation?
Imagine you have a framework that can spit out sub-pieces of a solution that worked in a Unix pipe-like way (e.g, sort the graphs | find strongly connected components in each graph | spit answer of graph with lowest number of SCC).
Then you need to grind out some type of expert system to replicate the competitive programmer who currently chunks together those framework pieces.
Of course, this probably doesn't work at all for something like kaggle or stockfighter.io, where parsing the instructions and observing a dynamic system are key parts of the hacking. I am more thinking of SPOJ or similar . . .