🚀 go-pugleaf

    (Of course, the *ideal* person might have a lot of linguistics *and*
    a lot of group theory and other relevant math *and* a hefty dose of
    high-performance computer expertise.  Such people are probably rather
    hard to find, though...)

*And* be willing to work for a secret spook agency.  Those are
even harder to find...

Here's a semi-counterexample though: I used to know a hippie type
who was a grad student in Turkish Literature, but who came from the US.
He did various odd jobs to get by until one day the DoD asked
if he would like them to pay all his school expenses---with almost no
obligations.  Seems they decided Turkish was a "strategic" language
and they were willing to spring some $$$ just to make sure that
at least a few US nationals understood it.  After he accepted,
he basically never heard from them except they paid his bills
and every now and then would send him documents in Turkish and
ask for translations.  He said the documents were always innocuous
news reports etc. and he suspected that their only purpose was
to make sure he was still around and studying.