It's very very hard for startup to sponsor you a work visa, whether they want to or not. Every year, the new window for applying the working visa (H1B) starts at April 1st, last year it took one week to fill out 210% quota of the visa for the whole year (translation: even if you did apply, you have less than 40% of getting the visa). And the visa won't take effect until October of the same year. It means that for a company, they have to wait for you at least 6 months before you can work (not counting any other months of interviewing and otherwise). For that reasons, most companies that can sponsor visa only do so for people who can already work using another visa, while waiting for the H1B visa. Not to mention the chance of not getting the visa in the first place.
That said, do you want to work for a startup, or just come to work in the US? If it's the latter, you might have better chance with finding a subsidiary of a US company in India, and hope that you can negotiate/ get them to send you to the US (you would be working for them first in India, obviously). I've known friends who came to the US this way. But beware of what you're getting into, many HN users here will gladly tell you that the H1B visa is evil, or might I say, literally Hitler.
That actually ties to the part of "H1B is evil". I'd rather not bring up that discussion, just search on HN (in both stories and comments) for "indentured servants" and/ or "H1B" to see all the comments from both sides in the past.
Anyway, the general advice for young-ish (I assume you are) programmer wanting to work for startup is to find not early stage startups, but mid-size one (think of current Uber/ Lyft/ Wanelo, or Facebook 2006-2007 etc.). As you will learn more, have an easier life (not that the work is not as challenging as early stage startup, but early stage startup is quite ... insane in some aspects), and further more, you can already filter out the crappy companies.
Remember, most startups die in the first two years or so, and if us programmers can pick who doesn't... well, I think I have a better job for you :-)
If you wish, you can contact me, email is in my profile.
Also, there's a growing startup scene in KL, which I'm sure is easier when it comes to getting a work visa.
That's the key. Look into the OPT visa and see if you qualify.
http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/f-1-opt-optional-practic...
This should not stop you from trying - but you need to focus on making yourself stand out from the crowd. They may like your profile, but if they like 45 other profiles, too, you need to tell them what makes you the one to choose.
If you are really the best guy for the job, they will figure out the visa issues. But if you are only 2nd best, they won't.
EDIT: I was also just thinking of how people I know who came from India made their move here. Most of them worked for one of the big Indian firms who outsource from the US. They would start working remotely in India, and then get a role that moved them to the US. Once they were here, they could get to know people, network, etc, and then find permanent US-based jobs through that network.
If you don't find a great startup, try looking for one in India. Hard to filter through awful lot of crappy ones, but put some time. Talk to as many startups as possible, don't just interview, but go to the offices, see how they work and try to work for a week before you join. You will find something good. Be patient, I must have talked to at least 40 startups face to face, went to at least 10 offices. It's funny though, at last I found my job through monthly HN-hiring thread.
From where?
The visa sponsorship regime in the US is ridiculous and extraordinarily risky (in the sense you must put in a lot of time and effort for a small chance of getting a visa). Not a lot of startups are able to put up with that. If I recall correctly, the H-1B in particular involves (a) posting a job requirement that you don't end up filling with an existing citizen/resident - a little game to appease the bureaucracy that's meant to ensure you're not TAKING OUR JOBS!!!11 (gag) (b) applying for a visa and paying $$$ at the right time of the year when they reset the annual quotas (c) waiting months for an answer.
:(
That said, if you don't take risks you don't get lucky.
I too am a developer from India, college student to be more precise. I'll get my degree in 2016. I want to move out of India to US or a country in Europe and am trying to find a way to do so.
As for my skills, i have done a ton of open source work and am proficient in popular languages like Python, PHP(?), Go, Clojure, etc. and some obscure languages as well.
I am not sure which field of the industry i want to specialize in right now but have done web, mobile, game-dev, desktop apps (linux & windows) and a bit of embedded stuff.
Whats the best way to get a job and move out of the country?
Given you do Python, Dropbox comes to mind, but you can always Google or stackshare.io for targets.
Good luck.
I would also give another vote for Berlin. I have lived here for the last year & it has a very low cost of living, yet still a strong tech/startup focus.
Are you able to travel to Berlin for 1 or 2 months & find a job? As mentioned, the visa process is much easier than the US & to be honest, your salary is going to go a lot further in Europe than in Silicon Valley.
I have visas available for Python devs from India or Eastern Europe.
In depth knowledge of systems programming and distributed computing, and familiarity with cloud service provider APIs and automation frameworks (e.g. Ansible/Chef) a plus.
What do you mean by that? Under H-1B one has job openings; you apply for the visa when you decide to hire an immigrant.
Also, it sounds like you're saying there are job positions at your company that are open only to people of particular national origins, or ethnic backgrounds. Isn't that illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
That said, parent poster is plenty sketchy :)
But bigger companies lacking talent have no problem with it.
If you live in the United States and you say you are working from India, you are committing fraud AND violating immigration laws.
If you live in the United States and you say you are working from the United States, you are just violating immigration laws.
Its about where you are physically located and as the original comment I replied to was referring to being physically located in the U.S., it would be illegal.
You can work outside of the US for a US based company, though.
And Java, and probably, more recently, some in Go. [1]
[1] This is anecdata :), but I don't think a majority of their work is in Python, though they do have some, and I also read the recent threads about their hiring Python devs.
More like C++ and Java (and JavaScript for the front-end), and nowadays some Go, as I said. This is just based on reading about them on various sites, though, I don't have internal info, so could be wrong.