Real Estate Photo Editor + Production Admin (Full-Time, US Eastern Hours) - Contract to Hire

Real Estate Photo Editor + Production Admin (Full-Time, US Eastern Hours)

Company: VantagePoint 3D & Media (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)

Type: Full-time, 36 hours a week, Tuesday through Saturday Schedule: Tuesday to Friday, 9:00am to 6:00pm US Eastern, with a one hour unpaid break. Saturday is a half day, 9:00am to 1:00pm Eastern. Please read the schedule section below carefully before applying. Rate: Up to $6 USD/hour, which is roughly $936 USD/month at 36 hours a week. To be clear, that is the top of our range and not a starting rate. Where you start depends on what your samples and your editing tests show us.

Before you apply, read this

We reject most applications on three things, so save yourself the time.

Your message must start with the word NEUTRAL. If it does not, we do not read any further.

You must send at least 3 before-and-after sets, with the original bracket or raw file next to your final edit. Put them in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder and share the link. Do not try to attach them to this message. If you cannot produce the originals for work you are submitting as your own, please do not apply.

You must confirm our schedule in your own local time, worked out yourself. The schedule section below explains it.

The full list of what to include is in the How to apply section further down. Applications missing any item will not be reviewed.

About us

VantagePoint 3D & Media is a real estate media production company serving the greater Atlanta market. We have been in business since 2014 and we are a team of about 25 people. We produce photography, property films, 3D tours, floor plans, and drone work for real estate agents, brokers, and homebuilders.

Agents choose us over cheaper options because of how the work looks when it lands in front of their client. That reputation is the entire business, and this role exists to protect it.

Some of our higher end work gets a full custom edit rather than our standard treatment. You would take on a share of that as it comes up, though we want to be straight with you: it would be occasional rather than the bulk of your week.

We are also growing fast, and we are not a company that builds a workflow once and leaves it alone. We are always testing ways to make the work better. We are hiring one person to help protect that standard and help raise it.

What this role actually is

This is not a high-volume production seat. You will not be handed 300 raw brackets every morning and told to run a preset.

You are the person who handles the work that has to be right:

Client revisions and change requests, turned around fast and correct the first time

Color matching and white balance consistency across a gallery, and across different photographers

Final quality control on galleries before they go out the door

Fixing the difficult images: mixed lighting, blown windows, color casts, crooked verticals, reflections

Retouching and cleanup requests

Admin work that keeps the editing pipeline moving: logging and tracking revision requests, keeping the edit queue organized, communicating job status with our team, file management and light data entry

The split is roughly 60 percent editing and quality control, 40 percent admin.

Worth being clear about how the work reaches you. Galleries get a first pass overnight, and part of your day is reviewing that work and judging whether it holds up. When it does not, we hand you the raw files and a reference for what it should look like, and you edit it properly from scratch.

Knowing when a gallery needs that treatment is as much a part of this job as the editing itself.

Be honest with yourself about that number. If you want to edit all day and never open a spreadsheet or answer a message thread, this is the wrong job and we will both be frustrated in month two. If you like owning a process end to end and being the person the team trusts to catch what everyone else missed, you will do very well here.

The part most editing jobs will not give you

Most editing work is anonymous. Someone hands you a folder and a preset, you do what you are told, and nobody asks what you think.

That is not what we want from this seat.

We want an editor who has real opinions about the craft and is willing to say them out loud. Over time, this person helps us refine our house style, tighten our editing standards, build and improve our style guide, and figure out where our galleries can look better than they do today. If you notice that our shadows run cold, or that our window pulls are inconsistent between two photographers, we want to hear it. If you find a faster or cleaner way to do something, we will adopt it.

We are refining our style right now, particularly on our higher end listings, and the person in this seat will have a real say in where it lands. Once it is set, the job flips. You hold the line on that standard, and you help the rest of the team hold it too.

You will have a direct line to leadership. You will work with our owner, our lead photographer, and our capture manager, not through three layers of middlemen. Your work will be seen by top producing agents and homebuilders in one of the most competitive real estate markets in the United States. As we grow, this role grows with us.

We are looking for a craftsperson who wants to help set the standard, not a pair of hands.

The schedule, and why it looks like this

Tuesday through Friday, 9:00am to 6:00pm US Eastern, with a one hour unpaid break. Saturday is a half day, 9:00am to 1:00pm Eastern. That comes to 36 hours a week.

We shoot Monday through Friday, and the first pass runs overnight. The following day is when that work gets reviewed, corrected, and delivered, and that following day is yours. Because we do not shoot Saturday or Sunday, there is nothing in the pipeline waiting on Monday morning, which is why Monday is your day off and your week runs one day behind ours.

Saturday is a half day for the same reason. Friday's shoots are the only thing in the queue, so the work is edit changes, revision requests, and quality control on that one day of photos. Admin is quiet too, because most agents are either off or out running showings and open houses. We would rather give those hours back than pay you to sit and wait for something to land.

Be clear-eyed about what this means if you are in the Philippines. Our hours fall overnight for you, roughly 9:00pm to 6:00am Manila time on weeknights for most of the year, and roughly 10:00pm to 7:00am when the US moves its clocks back in November. Your schedule follows US Eastern time year round, so it shifts by an hour in March and November.

The half day matters more than the four hours suggest. Your Saturday shift ends around 1:00am Manila rather than 6:00am, so you get Sunday back as a real day instead of one you sleep through. Your week runs Tuesday evening to early Sunday morning, with Sunday and Monday off.

We are not going to pretend that is a normal schedule. If it does not fit your life, this is the wrong job, and we would both rather find that out now than in your third week.

Requirements

Strong Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop skills. Layer and mask work in Photoshop is required, not optional.

Real estate photo editing experience specifically. You should be fluent in flambient and HDR blending, window pulls, ambient light blending, sky replacement, lens correction and vertical straightening, and making a room look bright and clean without looking fake or over-processed.

A trained eye for color. Neutral whites, consistent warmth across a full gallery, no green or magenta casts hiding in the shadows. Difficult color matching is the part of this job we care most about.

A high level of written and spoken English. You will be reading client revision notes and working directly with our team every day, so this is not a soft requirement.

The discipline to hold one consistent house standard across every gallery, paired with the judgment to tell us when that standard should change and why. Consistency first, opinions welcome.

A computer that runs Photoshop comfortably, reliable internet, and a real backup plan for power and connection outages.

Ability to work 9:00am to 6:00pm US Eastern Tuesday through Friday, plus a Saturday half day, consistently and long term.

Nice to have

Virtual twilight edits, virtual staging, or object removal experience

Video editing (Final Cut Pro) or floor plan experience

AI Image / video generation experience

Previous experience working directly with a US-based media company

Pay and how it grows

Up to $6 USD/hour, roughly $936 USD/month at 36 hours a week. Your starting rate depends on what your samples and your editing tests show us.

We review pay every six months based on quality, reliability, and the responsibility you have taken on. The top of the range is reachable, and we would much rather pay it than replace you.

13th month pay.

Every editing test in our hiring process is paid at $0.80 USD per image, whether or not we end up hiring you.

How to apply

Send an application that includes every item below. Applications missing any item will not be reviewed.

Start your message with the word NEUTRAL so we know you read the whole posting.

Link 10 to 15 of your best real estate images in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder. Include at least 3 before-and-after sets showing the original bracket or raw file next to your final edit. Share the folder link in your message rather than attaching files here. This part is not optional. If you cannot produce the originals for work you are submitting as your own, please do not apply.

Tell us exactly which parts of those samples you edited yourself, and what software you used.

Tell us your typical turnaround time per image, and roughly how many images you edited in the past year.

Confirm you can work 9:00am to 6:00pm US Eastern Tuesday through Friday plus a Saturday half day, and tell us what those hours are in your local time so we know you have worked it out. Include your internet speed and your computer specs.

Tell us your desired hourly rate in USD.

In two or three sentences, tell us one thing you see done badly in most real estate photo editing, and how you do it differently. We read every answer to this one.

Our hiring process

We run four stages. Nobody is asked to do unpaid editing work at any point.

Samples and resume. We review your gallery and resume, with close attention to the before-and-after sets. We are asking two questions here: is this work good and does this person fit in with our team?

Recorded video introduction. Candidates we like are asked to send a short recorded video. This stage is about communication and fit. You will be working closely with our owner, our lead photographer, and our capture manager, so how you come across matters.

Paid editing test. We send you a small but deliberately difficult set: mixed and problem lighting, hard color, the images most editors get wrong. This stage decides more than any other, and we look at it closely.

Paid full gallery. Our last one or two candidates edit a real gallery of ours, roughly 80 images, which comes out to about $64. Holding color and tone consistent across an entire set is most of this job, and this is where we find out whether you can do it.

Then an offer and onboarding. We move quickly and we pay for test work promptly.

One more thing

We are looking for one excellent person, not five average ones. We would rather pay $6 an hour to an editor who makes our galleries better than pay half of that to someone who only keeps up. If that is you, show us in your samples and we will move quickly.

Back to blog

Other Jobs To Apply

No other job posts for this day.

Common Interview Questions And Answers

1. HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DAY?

This is what this question poses: When do you focus and start working seriously? What are the hours you work optimally? Are you a night owl? A morning bird? Remote teams can be made up of people working on different shifts and around the world, so you won't necessarily be stuck in the 9-5 schedule if it's not for you...

2. HOW DO YOU USE THE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?

When you're working on a remote team, there's no way to chat in the hallway between meetings or catch up on the latest project during an office carpool. Therefore, virtual communication will be absolutely essential to get your work done...

3. WHAT IS "WORKING REMOTE" REALLY FOR YOU?

Many people want to work remotely because of the flexibility it allows. You can work anywhere and at any time of the day...

4. WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE TO SUCCEED IN YOUR WORK?

With this question, companies are looking to see what equipment they may need to provide you with and to verify how aware you are of what remote working could mean for you physically and logistically...

5. HOW DO YOU PROCESS INFORMATION?

Several years ago, I was working in a team to plan a big event. My supervisor made us all work as a team before the big day. One of our activities has been to find out how each of us processes information...

6. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE CALENDAR AND THE PROGRAM? WHICH APPLICATIONS / SYSTEM DO YOU USE?

Or you may receive even more specific questions, such as: What's on your calendar? Do you plan blocks of time to do certain types of work? Do you have an open calendar that everyone can see?...

7. HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE FILES, LINKS, AND TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER?

Just like your schedule, how you track files and other information is very important. After all, everything is digital!...

8. HOW TO PRIORITIZE WORK?

The day I watched Marie Forleo's film separating the important from the urgent, my life changed. Not all remote jobs start fast, but most of them are...

9. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A MEETING AND PREPARE A MEETING? WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING DURING THE MEETING?

Just as communication is essential when working remotely, so is organization. Because you won't have those opportunities in the elevator or a casual conversation in the lunchroom, you should take advantage of the little time you have in a video or phone conference...

10. HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY ON A DAILY BASIS, IN YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

This is a great question because it shows your comfort level with technology, which is very important for a remote worker because you will be working with technology over time...