You need to go to your preferences.

Okay now I've noticed the edit pencil in the top right corner. I was looking around the edit menu (even in the drop down with more options). I'm not sure if it wasn't loading before or if I was just blind to its existence but even now I see it, it doesn't feel obvious - I mean I'm already editing I thought it was just illustrative :)

Now I'm in VE and to be honest it took me a while to work out how to get back to the wikitext editor (I thought [[]] was something to do with linking at first and my first thought was to click the menu button) - I would personally expect the icon to be consistent between views.

Now I've worked it out I'm sure I'll be fine, but I'm not sure if I worked it out just because I'm familiar with the software.

Not sure whether this task is useful but just wanted to document my experience.

(if you're not user testing this I really think you should be @aripstra!)

@Jdlrobson Thanks for the feedback! I had some of the same concerns that you do, and am interested to see what we will find in usability testing. We definitely will be testing the edit tab before it is released out of test wiki. @Jdforrester-WMF has assured me that we will test and iterate (as needed) before it is widely released to wikis.

I'm going to merge this into the task actually making this interface first; sorry for the confusion.

I've noticed this too, and I think this change has the potential to confuse & inconvenience a lot of experienced users who are used to switching back and forth between VE and WTE.

As a Wikipedian, I regularly switch back and forth between VE and WTE within a single editing session. I prefer to use WTE for certain tasks, and VE for others. Clicking the "edit" vs. "edit source" tab is normal and effortless for me. I don't yet see how having the software "remember" my preference will improve my experience. Could you describe the rationale for this design change in greater detail? I've never encountered "user choice paralysis" personally, or seen it reflected in a user study session.