Why our B2B matching engine is a pure function, not an ML model (opens in new tab)

When you build a marketplace that connects two sides, manufacturers on one side and distributors on the other, the first instinct is often to reach for machine learning to rank matches. We went the other way. The core of Hell of a Partner is a deterministic scoring function, and that choice has paid off in ways I did not expect. The shape The whole matcher is one pure function: scoreMatch(offer, profile) => { score: number, // 0 to 100 tier: "strong" | "fair" | "weak", rationale: Reason[] // ...