I empathize with that as I went to grad school in a school of architecture. Ended up specializing in software in their department of urban planning. Calling yourself a designer instead of an architect is just a way to be more inclusive to landscape architects, interior designers, material engineers, and everyone else who works in a the design software space.

Design thinking is just a concept for thinking about problems. Whether you're a plumber or a fashion designer, solving your problem with software first is the antithesis of design thinking. It's just a philosophy of first principles built for anyone who creates physical or digital products.