From my distant memory, the removal of the down-lock pins must be entered in the AML. How do the engineers do this if they are in for push-back (or have the rules changed?)? I don't know about the 380 but the 744 down-lock pins are quite high up in the nose-wheel bay.
This pin should not be confused with the Hydraulic Shutoff Pin which is inserted during push-back to disable the nose-wheel steering and is shown to the pilots by the push-back crew.