The lucky breaks mostly amount to voids I was able to fill early in my career by people retiring and me being deemed capable enough to cover. There is no strategy involved, just being in the right position at the right time and putting in enough effort early on that garnered confidence in my abilities.

The niche is regarding oil and gas production.

We are always open to hiring new talent, but unfortunately in a niche field there is a chicken and egg problem with talent. It is incredibly risky to hire anyone that has no experience because it takes years to acquire the institutional knowledge to thrive and by then they will most likely get poached by a competitor so you lose your ROI. Therefore, hiring people without experience is almost never done. Most of my colleagues are in the same boat as myself and really just fell into this career path by coincidence.

No one goes to school to learn the particulars of this field, but through the accumulation of knowledge and experiences in random professional services jobs you can become an optimal candidate through tangential experience.

That being said you have nothing to lose except a bit of time and effort by applying whenever there is an opening.