Jobs and permits for Americans moving to Cologne - Germany

Hey, all!
I'm an American arriving in Cologne this weekend. My wife is doing research with the university. We have two small girls I didn't want to be separated from, so we're shutting everything down in the U.S. We're going to be in Cologne for a year.
I've done research and tried to prepare as best I can for the move. On thing that seems hard to do overseas is find a job.
If you all have suggestions about job-hunting in Cologne, I would really appreciate them. I don't speak German--but I'm learning. My background is in I.T. I was a Windows XP engineer in my last job. This posting describes my last position exactly (except for the fluent in German part):
Windows XP engineer sought
I'm okay with doing other work too though, but I'd prefer to stay in I.T.
A sticking point seems to be the work permit. From my understanding reading the U.S. German Embassy page, I need a job offer from an employer and no German or EU citizen can be found to fill the position. There are exceptions for freelancing and language teachers. If my understanding is wrong, can someone correct me?
Thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Ronald Montgomery

Citibank has its German HQ in Düsseldorf, just half an hour by train from Köln, and the US consulate is here as well (near the Hbf, main train station). You might ask to speak with someone there to see if they can at least tell you what you should do.
I think that a temporary work visa is doable if you are already working for a multi-national, but I do not know for sure.

Hey, thank you for the good advice. I´ll go to the US Consulate Monday morning.

how good are your programming skills, esp. PHP, Java, MySQL?

There are many IT firms in Cologne looking for programmers.

It should not be hard to find an IT job in Cologne.

I need a better understanding of your skills to give you the right company names.

Anyway, you can send me your resume and I can pass it on to some IT companies I know in Cologne.

Best,

Michael