GPIO output with pull down resistor
Standard way is to have the pull-down resistor and in the firmware just set pin as push pull output.
And now that you actually show the schematics, you really want to drive the FET gate as fast as you can which is achievable only when the MCU pin is a push pull output.
Simply letting the resistor to discharge the gate capacitance will be slow and that makes the FET to spend more time being halfway on and heating up.