The Bay Area is blessed with many, many wasteful fools and you can benefit from their discards of perfectly good things. I don't remember the last time my husband or I bought a jacket or sweater, etc. We've picked up much of our furniture and household goods on the street.
For food, you might not be able to have a nice garden like some of us; however, there are many ethnic-type groceries that have very good prices. For example, 99 Ranch has a store in Fremont and there are also some small Hispanic grocery chains. Learn to cook a bit if you don't already. There are lots of farmer's markets as well; however, some are not as inexpensive as the groceries (because going to the farmer's market in some towns is sort of fashionable.) Fremont is a hub for some immigrant communities and there are likely some nice groceries there.
For housing, look at bulletin boards (virtual as well as physical) aiming at specific interests. For example, this morning at the ecology center in Berkeley I saw a notice for a roommate/housemate. I've also seen notices in some publications for ethnic groups and on store/restaurant bulletin boards. If you're religious at all, join a church. You probably want to be in a place with housemates anyway--you'll learn more about the area this way. With the number of people looking for housing and the difficulty in getting rid of a bad roommate, many people look first to fill a vacancy with a targeted posting rather than on Craig's list.
Regarding the job, that's not my area any more (retired!) but LinkedIn is very popular here, and some of my colleagues when I was working got job offers just by posting their resumes, even though my company wasn't very tech-y. If you enjoy writing, mention that somewhere in the resume, because many techs can't write. There are lots of tech networking groups here as well. Also, if you don't like the first company, move on quickly--job hopping doesn't seem to be an issue here, and you don't want to get stuck in a niche.
Also, goes without saying--get a bike.