How might design-thinking be applied to technical design?

As a terminology, technical design, is rarely used in the software industry. Whenever the terminology is used, the community might confuse that with UX design. The more commonly used term is software architecture. The problem I find with the word architecture is people are becoming quite focused on the just the product of the work which may lead to Beaumaris architecture.

When I think about technical design, the idea of design-thinking comes to mind. Should the idea of empathising, a part of design-thinking, be applied to technical design? Who are the users of a technical design? If the business and developers are the users, could we produce a simpler architecture if we start from empathising?