It'll be tough for sure. And depends on what the startup is prepared to do. Have you spoken to an immigration attorney? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=proberts does AMAs on here regularly and it might be worth contacting his firm for advice (also take a look through his AMAs).
Things I've seen work:
- Work remote, visit SV regularly for work. To be frank, I think that can be the best of both worlds. But YMMV.
- If you work for an overseas subsidiary for over a year, you can try for L-1 to transfer to the US. Generally the "startup" needs to be big (big) for this to be practical. You don't outright need a degree, but 5-years experience is probably on the lower end. If SV is your dream, it might be a case of finding a bigco startup that is prepared to do this. A stepping stone might be working for one of them in the EU first (e.g. Dublin in particular has plenty of satellite offices for SV companies).
- There are other options like the O-1 and H1-B, but these are extremely competitive. Again, immigration lawyer would have a better idea.
In all cases I'd probably give Peter a try first.
Remote work with visits is a great option in the meantime. L-1 I'm not too comfortable with as I'd be entirely tied to that company. O-1 seems like the easiest path, I'll try to find a book deal to start out with.
I think I'll refer only above 500 HN karma. And I'm honestly sorry, I really don't mean to be elitist or anything.
> If you have ANY (literally ANY) sort of problem that you need solved, contact me. I mean seriously, literally any problem, even the one you think I can't help you with. The harder the better.
How do I work at a Silicon Valley startup that wants to hire me, if I'm an EU citizen with no degree and 5 years of work experience?