I know people that commute much further.

http://www.gregorygarver.com

The real question for you should be "what is my price point?" i.e. "What kind of property do I get in Noe Valley for the money I can afford to spend?"
Noe Valley can be expensive. Noe Valley is a great place to live and has great BART & MUNI transportation and easy access to Freeways depending upon where you locate in Noe.
There are other areas with great South SF access to MUNI or public transportation (Mission Dolores, Glen Park) that may also work for you if price is a consideration.

It is an easy commute to South San Francisco by car. I know several people who live in Noe and drive to Genetech in South San Francisco. You just get on Dolores and it merges with San Jose and then turns into the 280. It's only about a 15-20 minute drive.

I live in Lower Pacific Heights and commute to South San Francisco. It is difficult and time-consuming to go to SSF on public transportation, but easy by car. The commute back home can be slow depending on Bay Bridge traffic, which backs up all SF-incoming traffic on 101.
If you are a bicyclist, you can ride down to BART on Mission Street or Glen Park to take it outbound to SSF. This will take you twice the time of driving -- and if your office is near the Bay, the winds are very difficult in the evening.

It's not a bad auto commute since the distance is short and you would be going the opposite direction of most other traffic.

The city actually has great public transport - nothing like Europe’s trains but still pretty good. Below is a link to a trip planner for the bus route. If you have a start and end address it should give you the time estimates you need. I can't imagine it would take more then 15 minutes, maybe 20 in traffic.

There is also the Bart but I'm thinking that is prob. not the best route coming from Noe Valley. The URL for that is http://www.bart.gov/ . It's most useful going from the financial district out to the South Bay.

I will be traveling by car if that makes sense. I live in Europe now and don't own a car.. i'm a 'Train' kinda guy but realize that this is not common in the U.S.

The commute in the city generally takes 15-30 minutes by car in traffic. I don't think that should be too much of a problem. what is your means of transportation?