Employment Type: Full-time – Remote
Schedule: Flexible remote schedule (regular PST overlap required)
Compensation: Paid biweekly, rate DOE
*Applications from recruiters or editing companies will not be considered.
Open Homes is a fast-growing Bay Area company providing creative and marketing services to the real estate industry. Founded in 2005 by a single photographer in San Francisco, we’ve grown into a diverse team delivering top-tier photography, video, 3D tours, floor plans, websites, print, and more. Our mission is to become the best content creators and platform for agents and brokers. We believe great people make great things.
Role Overview
We are seeking a Lead Photo Editor to help run and evolve the day-to-day operations of our fast-paced post-production team. Reporting directly to the Post Production Manager, you will be instrumental in refining current post-production pipelines and testing new workflows. You will be responsible for reporting on team performance metrics, overall capacity, as well as hiring of editors to scale the team as needed in collaboration with management.
The right person in this role won’t hesitate jumping into the editing queue when needed. And you’ll have opportunities to flex your expert-level, versatile retouching skills on special photography projects, including marketing, portraiture, and lifestyle imagery!
Key Responsibilities
Day-to-Day Operations & Team Management
- Run daily post-production operations, maintaining close communication with the Post Production Manager to ensure strict SLA turnaround times and quality standards are consistently met while smoothly integrating new workflow refinements.
- Track and report on team performance metrics and overall editing capacity, ensuring resources are optimally balanced against incoming volume.
- Supervise and mentor Editors, providing clear, actionable feedback and ongoing training to elevate the team’s overall skill level.
- Partner directly with the Post Production Manager to actively recruit, hire, and scale the editing team.
Workflow Development & Automation Collaboration
- Actively participate in testing and refining new production pipelines, providing feedback against desired outcomes.
- Identify opportunities for automation and collaborate effectively with external technical specialists brought in to build custom tools, scripts, or actions.
Retouching & Quality Assurance
- Serve as the lead editor across day to day volume production and lower frequency special projects.
- Perform rigorous QA checks on high volumes of images submitted by internal editors and field photographers, ensuring strict adherence to our aesthetic standards.
- Execute advanced editing techniques extending beyond standard real estate, including creating or modifying existing scenes and advanced portraiture (high-end skin retouching, human modification).
Qualifications
Experience
- 5+ years of relevant experience with expert-level skills in general retouching, extending well beyond real estate to include portraiture, human modification, and scene creation.
- Proven track record of supervising, managing, or acting as a team lead for editors in a high-volume, fast-paced environment, with specific experience building or scaling a team highly preferred.
- Hands-on experience coordinating day-to-day post-production volume, monitoring team capacity metrics, and refining pipeline workflows especially within a rapidly growing or continuously evolving environment.
- A degree in photography or visual arts is a plus, though significant relevant field leadership experience is the primary requirement.
Skills
- Adaptability: Highly comfortable working in a dynamic environment that champions continuous improvement, with a proactive approach to testing and implementing new workflows.
- Broad Retouching Expertise: Master of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom with a high-level ability to flawlessly manipulate diverse subject matter—from architectural HDR blending to advanced portrait compositing.
- Leadership & Communication: High English proficiency (written and verbal) is a must for directing a remote team, providing constructive critiques, collaborating closely with the Post Production Manager, and keeping stakeholders aligned.
- Project Coordination: Strong time management and operational skills, comfortable balancing your own complex editing queue while keeping a team of editors unblocked and SLAs met.
- Process Awareness: Strong understanding of efficiency workflows, AI integration, and batch processing. (Bonus/Nice-to-Have: The ability to personally write custom Photoshop scripts or build complex automated actions from scratch is a major plus, but not required).
Apply
*Applications from recruiters or editing companies will not be considered.
