There were two types, local National (LN) which were majority and are locally hired to go on patrol with troops and translate. LN get paid around $700/mon as compared to average Afghani soldiers of $200/month.
Then there were pushto speakers Afgani or Pakistani (US citizen) who went there as a contractors from US. They were background checked given temporary low level security clearance. Their job was the interpreter Taliban radio chatter on patrol. Usually safe inside commander vehicle. Taliban has spotters on mountains, so assisting locating them via radio chatter and during on going raid, something that has to do with security or safety of US troops. LN gets to do shit job on foot patrol while contracts usually hang around low ranking field officers, or talking and translating to local informants of the area. Contracts were making $200,000 to $300’000/yr depending on level language qualification and security clearance level the able to obtain.
Now top of the tier were US Army signal intel personal. Defense Language institute (DLI) qualified cryptography linguistics (trained Urdu or pushto speaking soldiers ). They work for NSA stations or if deployed to Afghanistan within super guarded facilities. They hold atleast Top Secret clearance and do what NSA does. There methods and expertise are highly classified and they are too valuable go outside the wire, and usually spend all day listening and generating reports.
There were few pushto speaker straight from Pakistan, like one of those anti-Pakistan Pashtun type . who went there to make extra bucks. Saw them working with (HUMINT) guys. Not exactly sure what they did, May be informants from tribal areas or something.