After graduating in 1990, he joined Japan Soccer League side Nissan Motors where his powerful dribbling helped him quickly establish himself as a regular.

However, Hidehiko Shimizu, the manager of J2 League side Vegalta Sendai, who had also managed Yamada at Yokohama Marinos, successfully persuaded him to come out of the retirement and help Sendai to gain the promotion to J1 League.

After retiring from the game, Yamada started his own business, a franchise chain of bakeries specialising in melonpans, in Sendai.

After exiting the business, he now runs an Irish pub in downtown Tokyo as of July 2018.

This biographical article related to a Japanese association football midfielder born in the 1970s is a stub.