Unfortunately the best (only?) true way is by doing. I suppose prospecting is the best analogy I found. You study geology and gain some theoretical foundations so you understand the relationships and can analyze the results, but you have to go out in the terrain and get your hands dirty so to speak to get true intuition and understanding.

Also, doing it on your own is tricky. You have to constantly talk and mingle with others or you quickly lose insight into current developments. Having a group of people to bounce ideas off of is incredibly important. On your own, every single small topic is a potential rabbit hole that you can spend endless time researching. In a crowd, someone has already explored that rabbit hole most likely and can give you practical pointers. At risk of sounding like a marketing prospectus, there's real synergy in being part of a team. I dare say the age of lone wolf traders is gone. They've been arbitraged away. Successful people have teams behind them.

So I'd say the best way to gain market knowledge is to join a systematic trading shop (in almost any technical capacity) and once inside, you just talk with the others. People in systematic firms tend to have a solid academic approach and are usually more than happy to teach and enlighten anyone interested.

That just brings us back to the beginning which is how can one break into a systematic trading shop?

What other name do they go by? Like what should I google if im looking for one in my city?

Is there no way for me to get a leg up on gaining that "intimate market knowledge" no insider books or reading/newsletters?

A recruiter can help you break into the industry. You can contact them directly or apply to jobs that they represent and they will contact you if they're interested. I'm not sure what the market is like these days for junior people, my guess is you need at least a few years of experience as a working programmer before a recruiter would be interested.

There are only a few big systematic funds. I think it's just Two Sigma, Jane Street, Citadel, Point 72/Cubist and AQR. Maybe a few others. You can apply to those yourself, but they're picky. Then you can look on LinkedIn for hedge funds looking for programmers, although it may not be obvious which are discretionary versus systematic.

Hedge funds are only in a few cities. About half are in NYC and Connecticut, then some are in Chicago, Boston, Houston and the Bay area. And maybe a few small ones elsewhere on the West coast, I'm not familiar with that area.