Design Thinking (DT) has become a fundamental tool for innovation and software quality improvement since it focuses on the user experience with approaches that provide for multidisciplinarity, prototyping, and stakeholder active collaboration. This paper aims to present a set of evidence in the software development context that employs Design Thinking concepts and practices in their activities, i.e., identifying tools, models, practices, and challenges experienced through DT in development teams. Thus, as methodology, through a set of steps guided by the research protocol, this research carried out a systematic mapping using three scientific bases, IEEE, ACM, and SCOPUS, which after verification and analysis of the results, 86 primary studies were worked on. These results can help practitioners and researchers in the area to better understand the challenges and implement more effective solutions to improve their tasks in software development using design thinking approaches. They also provide a mapping of the research about design thinking in software development, identifying areas where further research is needed.