Considering applying at CouchSurfing

lordy

Dear all,

over the last few days I have thought about applying for a job at CouchSurfing. They have a job opening as "Operations Engineer" which, I guess, would fit me and I just love San Francisco.

Coming from Germany and not having a Green Card I was wondering about two things:
1) Would they even bother to go through the paperwork required?
2) What salary would be appropriate for such a position?

The salary is especially difficult for me. In Germany such a position would probably be paid around $ 90.000 per year. However, we have a tax rate of easily 40% so not that much is left over. On the other hand, I have no idea what the costs of living in the SF area are. I currently work in a similar position here and I can afford a 800 sqft apartment, a car, gadgets and everything I could probably need. Plus, I get to put aside roughly $500 each months.

What would you think would be a salary that would make a similar lifestyle possible in SF? I don't luxury but I definitely don't wanna go shopping and check if Pepsi is cheaper than Coke.

As always, your input and opinions are appreciated

Whiteout

I do know that San Fran has one of the highest cost of livings for a city in the US. At least according to the government, they would give me the most money to work there to offset cost of living.

Aldur

The bay area in general is very expensive. High cost of living (housing/food/gas/etc..) and high taxes. If I lived in California I would need about a 70-80% pay raise to break even. Granted I live in state that doesn't charge state income tax so there's a huge difference there for me.

You say that if you made 90k/yr in Germany, you'd be taxed about 40%. If you made around that figure in California, you'd be taxed around 30-35%. So depending on the cost of living difference, it might be similar, or you might get your butt handed to you.

sratakhin

You will probably need to apply for an H-1b visa before an employer can petition for employment-based green card. About 65,000 people every year apply for those visas (plus who knows how many renew their work permits). If you have a master's degree, it makes applying for the visa even easier as you have to compete with only 20k people.
What would make an employer go through all the hassle? You either have to be more qualified than other applicants or be willing to work for less.

90k for Bay Area is a pretty good salary, but it won't be much if you have a family. Although you can probably make more than that with your certifications.

Good luck! You can apply for other jobs as well to expand your options.

powerfool

Hmm... coming from Germany. Willkommen! Hopefully you find something fulfilling that meets your requirements and you get to have fun while you are here. I am currently practicing German, poorly, because I hope to work in Germany for a couple of years some time in the future. Multiple reasons for it (my family was one of the first German families in the New World and I am working on my genealogy in Europe now, and I think it would be a great place to have as a base camp for all sorts of European travel).

I am not familiar with the SF Bay area, beyond what I know from television, but if you need any other help, please feel free to contact me!

jmritenour

The bay area is insanely expensive. I was actually offered a job not too long ago by a former employee of one of our clients. Aside from the fact that I really didn't want to move my family across the country at this point in time, when I got to looking at cost of living, I realized that I'd have to nearly double my current salary to come out ahead. Sure there suburbs around the area that are cheaper, but then I'd be commuting an hour plus, which I currently to the DC metro area. Moving 3000 miles away to be in the exact same scenario didn't sound like fun to me.