Work remotely expenses

ricardof360

I'm thinking about work remotely for a company as a 3D Artist.
but i can't afford the workstation and softwares licenses .
should the company provide the proper equipment or i should buy everything by myself?

CrackRockSteady

The question of whether the company "should" provide these things is kind of irrelevant.  They either will or they will not.  If they will, you're set.  If they will not, you'll need to provide them yourself and if you cannot afford them then probably this gig isn't for you.  This is something you should negotiate with the company before accepting the position.  If you explain that you cannot afford the expenses it is possible they will cover them for you but it really depends on the company.

ricardof360

what usually happens?

CrackRockSteady

I'm sure someone else can answer this better than I can, but it depends exactly what "working remotely" means.  Are you a full-time salaried employee, simply working off-site?  If that is the case my assumption would be that the company covers the cost of software licenses at least, if not the cost of a workstation.  

On the other hand if you're working as a contractor/freelance employee it is probably less likely that the company will assume these costs and it would be up to you to provide your own hardware/software.

At the end of the day what it really comes down to is, these are questions that you should be asking of your potential employer before you accept the job.

Jonas Ronnegard

Working remotely kinda means that you are a full time employee but are working off site, which makes it sound like they should provide equipment and licenses. If it's a regular freelance gig you should set your rate with equipment, licenses, office space, benefits, insurance in mind. So you should basically be getting 30 - 50% more then you would at a studio position.

ToffeeApple

Hey - I've worked remotely before and paid for the software licenses myself as I was classed as a freelancer on a full time contract. You probably would always need to buy your own workstation - I could be wrong but it's good to have your own anyway for personal work. The wage was high enough to cover the monthly licenses so I wouldn't worry about whether you can afford to work remotely. For licenses you can go for cheaper options such as Maya LT or Blender. And paying for the monthly subscriptions means that once you finish any contracts you can cancel the subscriptions and then start them up when you get more work.  It'd just be the workstation you need to makesure you have before you look for remote/freelance work I'd say.There are a lot of jobs out there paying quite low wages  - so just makesure that you quote for a fair wage and timescale. Don't get sucked into doing anything that you can't afford to do. The low wage jobs can be due to market competition in Asia (they can afford to take much lower wages) but also it can be because a company is a fresh startup who don't realise how much work making game art can take.